“Hoofin It” With HSUS

Beginning tomorrow, and lasting through August 20, the city of Denver will promote the gratuitous slaughter of animals who were raised with love. On Sunday you can get bison; Monday “sheep is the star”; Tuesday is pig night; Wednesday it’s cow. Every meal will be served at a restaurant that prides itself on morally commmodfying sentient animals who farmers respected while they lived, before selling their bodies for cash. The event is called “Hoofin It” and “farm to table” is the mantra. As The Denver Postreports, “a different hooved animal will be showcased every evening.” Cost of the showcase: $60.

Now, critics of animal agriculture, as well as animal advocates, have become all too familiar with these sort of Orwellian stunts. Essentially, what these events do is obscure systematic suffering under the false guise of humanity in order to serve a range of financial interests and a popular taste for animal flesh. It’s insulting, really. We’re especially accustomed to the oxymoronic–not to mention moronic—sponsorships of these moral carnivals: ethical butchers, humane animal farmers, compassionate carnivores, and the like. It thus may come as a surprise that the sponsor of “Hoofin It” is . . . . The Humane Society of the United States.

As you might imagine, there’s been outrage over this. Why would an organization that works so diligently to reduce the consumption of meat promote the consummation of meat? One letter I received from a Colorado critic of the event explained, “Needless to say, the vegan community in Colorado is quite upset with HSUS’ sponsorship of this event and has notified HSUS of their concern.” Here is what HSUS wrote by way of an explanation:

Our farm animal efforts are two-pronged: reduce the number of animals being raised and killed, and reduce the suffering of animals who are being raised and killed. While the meat industry’s leadership reviles The HSUS, there are also farmers and ranchers who agree with us on gestation crates and other aspects of industrialized agriculture. They’re a powerful voice in our campaign to end unacceptable and particularly inhumane practices. We need the public’s support to pass these laws, and it’s a potent statement to have farmers assert that they oppose gestation crates (and other factory farming practices). We’ve always believe that politics is about addition and not subtraction, and some of the most powerful allies are people that some may think are unlikely allies. That’s why we do outreach to small farmers on factory farming issues.

This event, sponsored in connection with our Colorado Agriculture Council, is part of our growing work with farmers and ranchers to fight inhumane practices such as gestation crates and tail docking. We support farmers and ranchers who give proper care to their animals, and act in accordance with the basic ethic of compassion to sentient creatures under their control, and practice and promote humane and environmentally sustainable agriculture. We also sponsor VegFests along with other vegan and vegetarian events around the country. The HSUS takes a big tent approach to combat factory farming and both our employees and our supporters consist of those who choose to eat meat and those who choose to be vegan or vegetarian.

My thoughts on this response too are many to articulate, and none of them are in sympathy. But in a nutshell it’s safe to say that there’s a fundamental difference between encouraging more humane methods of animal agriculture and throwing a party to celebrate animal slaughter. There’s simply no hoofin it around HSUS’s craven capitulation to compromise on this event. Shame.

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90 Responses to “Hoofin It” With HSUS

On behalf of the beautiful creatures for whom you so passionately advocate, thank you. Your writing is thoughtful, intelligent and poignant. I’ve been fighting this fight since 1983 (even went to Notre Dame Law School to pursue a career in animal protection – my application essay was about factory farming). It is comforting to read your columns and know I am not alone.

I am heartened that so many people, who have up till now, been trying their hardest to give HSUS “the benefit of the doubt”, are actually now recognizing that this (and much else they have been doing for a long time) crosses an important line.

So How about we kill you humanely before selling your body for cash? Oh, no wait… That is your karma in your next life, in this life you are the animal eater… Next life you will be the one taken from your family and slain, humanely of course, to be sold and eaten. Sound good? That is fair and ethical right?

Do you really believe that There is a humane way to kill a fellow sentient being whom has done nothing to deserve this? Gain some compassion, Quit using your ego desires for the taste of dead flesh as an excuse to KILL ANYTHING.

It’s fine that HSUS wants to encourage the agriculture community to oppose intensive confinement practices. The farmers who are involved with HSUS are in competition with those who use intensive practices, so, while they may genuinely consider those practices to be inhumane, they have a self-interest in opposing them.

HSUS doesn’t need to resort to selling out animals in order to garner farmer support. The farmers benefit from HSUS’s opposition to intensive production.

It’s hard to think of a corresponding analogy dealing with human rights. Offhand, it’s sort of like opposing rape by handing out condoms so rapists will at least practice ‘safe sex,’ and then having festive public events to celebrate it.

HSUS’s explanation makes no sense. What it is doing is indefensible and outrageously counterproductive. Given the organization’s status with the media and the public, its promotion of animal consumption makes raising the status of animals SO much harder. It is a terrible betrayal of the animals they claim to be protecting, and a real disservice to those who are genuinely trying to help animals. It is, however, just what the public loves to hear: The Humane Society says it’s okay to eat animals and even a good thing to do so. With advocates like that…

No, it’s not, because it very much involves violence, such as slaughter and other violent practices.

If you want to use domestic abuse as an analogy, it’s more like opposing domestic abuse by advocating that no weapons be allowed, only bare hands, and then publicizing it by celebrating at the victims’ funerals.

It’s like a world in which all men beat their wives daily, and eventually kill them. In such a world, it would be a huge improvement to get these men to treat their wives with dignity and respect every day, even though they’ll eventually kill them when they consider them no longer useful (imagine a world like Hollywood, in which women are not considered useful beyond a certain age). Obviously, the best solution would be for husbands to treat their wives as equals and never harm them. Nonetheless, ending the daily abuse would still be a huge improvement.

Wow, this is such a terrible event. Somehow you still believe that slaughtering and killing animals is good under any circumstances? Anyone who is part of this organization and the HSUS hoof fin it event will reap what they sew. You better go get yourself checked out for cancer pretty soon. Poor sick and twisted ignorant individuals.

Once again, you’ve stated my position perfectly. HSUS can get its donations from the people who’re going to pay $60 to eat buffalo flesh, or pig flesh, or whatever flesh they choose; my $100/month is already going elsewhere. Terrible move for Pacelle. I think he will regret selling out the animals whom many of us will keep fighting to have spared from the abuse and cruelty of people who eat them.

I haven’t supported HSUS since they supported Micheal Vick as a “reformed” person. The national organization is not something to support. I’ve been involved with shelters and rescues for 35 years. Support local shelters and get involved locally. This Hoofin it event is no surprise from them.

Thank you so much for your intelligent and informative article. I am a member of HSUS, but the fact that they support, in fact sponsor, such an “event” makes me re-think my membership. I know the HSUS does do good things for animals, and I understand their point that animals raised on small farms are treated better than those that are factory-farmed, but why support slaughter at all? Very strange that they would support such an inane “festival” It’s not a festival for the creatures that lost their lives. I’m sick of the whole “foodie” movement anyway. Please keep-up the good work. I’m an attorney and try to keep-up with everything happening in the animal rights/welfare world.

Thanks for your comment. HSUS walks a delicate and perhaps necessary tightrope between pragmatism and idealism. This time they erred on the side of pragmatism, suffering a sever fall. That’s how I see this issue, rather than a good/bad, hypocrite/saint dichotomy. Keep that in mind as you contemplate your decision. –JM

I agree. HSUS has fought so many battles in behalf of animals including horses that I cannot turn my back on them because of a lack of judgement such as this. But I do want them to know that joining into this event was a major error. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. As a contributor to HSUS efforts, I will keep my eye on them.

This is normal, routine HSUS behavior. It is not new at all. And it is not a naïve “lack of judgment” on the part of this organization. They know exactly what they are doing, and why, and animal victimization in the guise of various feel-good fictions is part of a conscious strategy.

In a word, yes, agreed. But perhaps registering a strongly worded protest is a better idea than giving up membership of the organisation. As has been said, they do good work, but clearly they need to re-think this very ill-considered step on the tightrope. If they don’t do better than this, they are likely to fall out with their most honest supporters.

I appreciate the HSUS’s rationale for sponsoring this event, but equally appreciate why you and others find it distasteful. HSUS leadership has clearly heard your concerns and taken them to heart, see for example Wayne Pacelle’s latest blogging. But considering how many people are citing your post as a reason to completely disavow the HSUS, I wish you had handled the issue with as much care and nuance in the initial post as you have done in this comment.

Not an apologist, Mary, a supporter, but “a rose by any other name,” amirite? For what it’s worth, I was also once an undercover investigator for them; that experience is largely what lead me to appreciate the need for progress wherever it can be found.

Anyways, I think the HSUS’s reasons are well-stated in the bold text in Mr. McWilliams’ initial post, as well as in the blog entry linked to in your own response. More to Mr. McWilliams’ and my point, though, I think that activists who oppose this action are entitled to speak out and ask that it not happen again, but should also keep things in perspective. The HSUS has done immeasurable good over the last 15-odd years in promoting veg*nism and confronting factory farm cruelty. It seems absurdly counter-productive, then, for some to write the organization off in toto for devoting somewhere around 0.001% of its operating budget to this event. Feel me?

I second everything you’ve said, Mary. On a related issue, where have all the “leaders” of this movement been regarding this blatant betrayal toward farmed animals who these groups claim to speak for and “protect”?

Had this “Respect Your Dinner: Hoofin’ It” event been sponsored by strictly an industry group – as opposed to the industry/advocacy hybrid group that the HSUS has become – there would have been a lot more groups posting about this travesty of justice for bison, lambs, pigs and cows on their websites and social media pages. Instead, except for a few brave exceptions that I am aware of (Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary, Karen Davis of United Poultry Concerns, pattrice jones of Vine Sanctuary, and of course, James Williams) the silence coming out of the most well-known figureheads/groups that make up this movement has been deafening. If history is any indicator, it is more than likely that those who took a stand by saying that HSUS’ involvement in “Hoofin It” was just plain WRONG, have been subjected to behind-the-scenes flak for “daring” to speak out against this traitorous event.

This silence is hardly something new. It appears that a certain high-profile sector of this movement has formed an unofficial all-for-one-and-one-for-all coalition with HSUS. HSUS has, bit by bit, “normalized” mixing animal advocacy with animal exploitation to where it has become generally accepted by more than a few animal advocates. Of course HSUS is going to promote animal-exploitation-filled events such as “Hoofin It” and the “Ohioans for Humane Farms dinner”. What other outcome is to be expected when animal advocates join forces and create pacts with animal exploiters? Or when HSUS hires a pig “farmer” to be one of its Vice Presidents? Or when HSUS proudly “celebrates” animal exploiters via their Farmer’s Outreach page? Etc., etc.

No doubt the fact that HSUS has a lot of funds available to hand out grants to the smaller groups helps maintain these groups’ veil of silence. Besides having grant money available to disperse to groups loyal to HSUS, a blogger named Katy Grimes recently stated that “HSUS’ 2012 IRS forms indicate that it made “offshore investments” totaling $25.7 million, and that it spent “$10 million on marketing, $7 million on direct mail, more than $3.5 million on fundraising consultants, $1.8 on “print management” (brokers), and the CEO received $400,000 in salary and benefits. The top staff and non-profit officers were paid more than $3.6 million in salary and benefits. Total staff salaries and benefits paid for 2012 were more than $44.5 million, out of $125.7 million of revenue — nearly 30 percent of the total revenue.”

The HSUS sponsorship of “Hoofin It” is just one more symptom of what has become ho hum, business-as-usual in the animal “protection” movement. There are still some excellent groups in the movement staying true to promoting the fact that animals are not objects to be exploited for human use. Sadly, however, there are a number of other groups who continue to grow their memberships, bank accounts and bureaucracies by being as vague and/or non-controversial as possible. Great for them, not so great for the animals.

Pacelle embraced Michael Vick (after the ASPCA, Best Friends, and even PETA rejected Vick’s legal and PR team’s offer to partner with the disgraced dogfighter. Wayne P knew that donors would be appalled and justified his decision by boasting of his moral superiority in granting MV a chance at redemption. Like he’s the pope or something instead of moral cretin. He had to know that the majority of HSUS employees involved in the organization’s campaign against dogfighting would find rehabilitating the most famous animal abuser’s image to help him return to the NFL. The HSUS-Vick partnership had nothing to do with stamping out dogfighting or educating young people about animal cruelty. Wayne Pacelle isn’t in the animal rights business, he’s in the Wayne Pacelle business.

Same for this new odious sell-out. HSUS gets added publicity for it’s new approach, distinguishing itself from other, “less effective” animal groups. Wayne Pacelle gets to again position himself as some kind of healer, bring both sides together. Hope and change and transformation and other bags of gas.

Wayne Pacelle is a white collar psychopath, fitting Dr. Robert Hare’s model and getting a perfect score on the checklist. He will never change. Expect more self-serving betrayals.

I think the need of tightrope walking is understood by most caring and thinking people, who also appreciate the need to be rational, but in this case it hardly seems fair to expect criticism to be couched in nuance. With the animals in mind, handling it “with care” most certainly demands the strongest criticism. The HSUS should not act in a way that requires it to request that pertinent protest be muted. With respect, your wording implies that the HSUS requires to be handled with kid gloves while the victims are quietly slaughtered.

CJ, I’ve been working for farmed animal protection for 3 decades now, 7 of those years spent working in HSUS’s Farm Animal section. It’s plain to me, as it should be to anyone, that animals will not be helped by promoting their exploitation.

By way of explanation HSUS has merely said that they are seeking the help of farmers and ranchers. The farmer and ranchers who side with HSUS are the ones who are competing with factory farming. HSUS doesn’t have to sell out animals in order to curry favor with them. Their reason doesn’t make sense. There IS no good reason for what HSUS is doing.

It isn’t just this event. HSUS has been collaborating with industry for years. See in particular the left sidebar: http://www.humanemyth.org/mediabase/1413.htm It keeps getting worse and worse. Mr. Pacelle would have us just trust HSUS to do the right thing. That trust has proven to be foolish. There are plenty of organizations that ARE doing the right thing. Their work is made all the harder by HSUS’s promotion of animal production and consumption. HSUS has become part of the problem, a big part.

This is the lesson that Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., taught us in his “Letter from a Birmingham jail,” that in any long-standing systematic oppression, whether it be the oppression of colored people, LGBT people, animals or indigenous people during the destruction of the environment, there are four categories of participants:
1) the perpetrators,
2) the victims,
3) the onlookers, and
4) the moderates.
Typically, it is the fourth category, the moderates who are critical in keeping that oppression continuing even when a majority of the onlookers want the oppression to stop. The moderates appear to be on the side of the majority onlookers, loudly decrying the oppression, but their main role is to negotiate with the perpetrators supposedly to “reduce the suffering” of the victims. They play the “good cop” role vs. the perpetrators “bad cop,” but the net result is that they prolong the oppression well beyond the time when a majority of the onlookers have stopped tolerating it.

But the moderates are also the most vulnerable part of the systematic oppression, for they are the ones who are caught in a cognitive dissonance, even if they are secretly in cahoots with the perpetrators. Therefore, in order to topple such systems of oppression, it is essential for us to confront and expose the hypocrisy of the moderates, which is precisely what Dr. King did in that letter from a Birmingham jail in 1963.

The Humane Society of the United States is clearly playing the role of the moderates in the oppression of animals and thank you for exposing their hypocrisy.

Sailish,
THank you for your wise remarks. But I do not think “a majority of the onlookers want the oppression to stop.” If that were the case why do a majority of the onlookers, who eat meat and love animals, keep eating meat?
James

Yes, very wise remarks, Sailish! In answer to your question, James, I think that one prominent reason is that a number of animal “protection” groups (with HSUS being the biggest culprit in the USA) purposely send out mixed messages that allow the onlookers to believe – with quite a sense of relief – that they can ‘love’ animals and eat them, too. It’s a win-win equation for both the moderates and the onlookers; the only losers are the animals.

Yes, it’s like telling chain smokers and alcoholics that their vices are not so bad. They don’t need to be made comfortable but to hear the truth, and if that can’t beat the habit or addiction even when they themselves are the victim, we can see how much harder it is where animals are the victims. I understand alcohol and tobacco addition but I find it hard to believe that meat addiction can be as difficult to overcome. It would be interesting to hear of any studies on this latter issue. If it is not an issue, then I really am at a loss to understand why so many people who appear sympathetic to animals carry on eating them.

I think tarted-up soya and other such products are a more satisfying alternative to meat than e-cigarettes to nicotine. Perhaps I shouldn’t have made this analogy, but I find it hard to accept that meat addiction is as difficult to overcome as cigarette or alcohol addiction, and I am only making the comparison in seeking an answer as to why people who seem genuinely to care about the suffering of animals nevertheless continue to eat them in full knowledge of the horrible suffering and trauma they inflict. Surely most sensitive and cultivated people should be vegan or vegetarian at least, and yet that is a ludicrously stupid supposition. What is the explanation of this?

James -
Why the onlookers eat meat and love animals is the question all of us ruminate over and over. I have dear friends who donate to the end of factory farming, love animals dearly, etc., etc., yet they continue to eat meat routinely. It is a bit like co-dependency and addiction. Most people who put a drug into their veins know that it is bad for them, yet cannot stop from pushing the plunger

And then there is the aged “lesson” that without meat one cannot obtain enough protein, and it has some validity as protein without dairy or flesh is not so easy.

There are those who cannot eat legumes or certain vegetables and grains.

But most of all there are large numbers of us who cannot fathom cooking or even eating without milk, butter, eggs, ingredients many of us rely upon.

And then there is the rationalizations and the dodging of reality. If we don’t think about it, it won’t exist. For most people to change our eating habits, we need to know it is necessary, believe it is necessary and to think it is necessary before we can make a single step toward change. We have to get over the delicious taste of so many things we enjoy. It is a lot to ask when you say, “Why don’t you just stop eating that rare steak and drinking that chocolate milk shake?”

It is necessary. The planet is dying, with the Amazon on track to be destroyed within the next ten years and Animal Agriculture and those who support Animal Agriculture are clearly responsible for that slow-motion catastrophe.

I assume that standards advocated for by HSUS diminish the suffering of animals. But even if they don’t, we know for certain is that they raise the price of meat. And when you raise the price of anything, we know that people consume less of it. And we know that when people eat less meat, fewer animals suffer.

So we know that, even if this festival offends your sensibilities– and there’s no reason it shouldn’t offend them– it leads to less animal suffering. Therefore, your critique of HSUS’s sponsorship, though understandable, is counterproductive.

But does the spotlighting of the delicacies of eating various kinds of highlighted meat night after night not increase the desire to eat those meats and therefore, increase the purchases of same? By aggrandizing meat eating, are there that many strides made foreword, factory farm methods or not, which actually decrease the slaughter of animals? Sounds to me like this event will increase the sale of meat.

Not likely. This event aggrandizes one particular type of meat (humane, artisanal, etc) over another type (industrial, factory-farmed, etc). I don’t see any message that suggests to eat more meat in general; it seems to suggest eating the same quantity but “better quality,” or eat less but savor it more. Either way, to the extent it convinces people that they should be eating the “better” (more expensive) stuff, the higher prices will cause them to consume less. They may still consume way too much, but it will end up be less than what they would have consumed if they thought all meat was equal.

Also, to the extent it convinces people to eat hoofed animals rather than small animals (mainly chickens, but also ducks, rabbits, and quail), it will lead to fewer animals being killed for each pound of meat.

Your comment too easily assumes that the alternative–advocating not eating meat from farmed animals at all–would be less effective that promoting “happy meat”–as they do here. Why do you assume that a strategy that promoted improved welfare for animals while also promoting veganism on ethical grounds–as opposed to promoting “hoofin it”–would be less effective? Here’s the point: There’s price, and there’s stigma. I imagine the cost of fur coats went down as demand went down due to the impact of activism. But that has not resulted in hordes going out to buy fur coats.

I make no such assumption. I simply point out that this event, if successful, will actually decrease animal suffering. I’m not saying it’s the best or most effective way to do so. I don’t compare it with advocacy against eating animals of any kind, because I don’t have any basis to compare the two.

I think it’s counterproductive to criticize the event because the event will most likely decrease animal suffering. And the event doesn’t preclude anyone from advocating against animal consumption. Advocates could even tie their slogans into the event– something like “if an animal deserves a good life, maybe it deserves not to be killed.”

I agree with you, but only if the options were exclusively a) hold the event and raise meat prices and b) not hold the event and not raise meat prices. But, your framing of the issue notwithstanding, those are not the only options. There’s also c) don’t hold the vent and promote not eating animals at all. So, given the reality of the options available, my argument is not counterproductive.

But the best option would be d) hold the event (HSUS) and promote not eating animals (a more vegan organization). That’s diversity in action, appealing to people who are open to a smaller change as well as to people who are open to larger change.

Now, if HSUS were trying to shut down vegan advocates at or near the event, that would be a different story.

In summary, vegans shouldn’t praise the event– after all, it views slaughter as an ethically neutral process rather than a source of harm– but they should view it as an opportunity rather than a problem. It’s a gathering of people whose minds are at least slightly more open than the average omnivore. That means it’s a target-rich environment.

James: Thank you so much for writing about this. It should come as no surprise that HSUS would sponsor an event celebrating the consumption of animals, given that the “HSUS Farmers Outreach” page has been a nonstop source of “throwing a party to celebrate animal slaughter” since its inception. It’s a ‘poster-page’ of betrayal to the animals that HSUS claims to “protect”.

HSUS’ “big tent” approach undoubtedly increases their membership and donor base, and allows the status quo to be maintained. What the animals need, of course, is for the status quo to be replaced. This will never happen when the largest, wealthiest animal “protection” organization insists on selling out the animals by regularly encouraging and promoting their continued exploitation.

JL: I read your commentary from your own FB page, thanks for supplying the link. One of the best comments on your page that summed up HSUS’ current attempt at spin control was this one from someone named Krista Behymer: [[ Here's the short version of their statement: "We are comfortable talking out of both sides of our mouths, because..money." ]] Short and sweet, and to the point!

I used to be a member of HSUS and participated in their phone calls with Wayne.
no more.
hsus is so far off the mark now. hoofin it and other recent really bad ideas have caused me to conclude hsus has turned into a big-ag mouthpiece. i never thought I would say this, but it really is true. so sad.
i believe in my heart, hsus is part of the problem, not the solution.
they have lost my respect as an organization purporting to help ease the suffering of animals

I sent the above paraphrased to HSUS. Thanks for discussing this. Also, I love with Sailesh Rao said about the moderates. Fits HSUS to a T and is delaying an end to animal pain and suffering. Shame on HSUS! They sold out.

I used to be a member of HSUS and participated in their phone calls with Wayne.
no more.
hsus is so far off the mark now. hoofin it and other recent really bad ideas have caused me to conclude hsus has turned into a big-ag mouthpiece. i never thought I would say this, but it really is true. so sad.
i believe in my heart, hsus is part of the problem, not the solution.
they have lost my respect as an organization purporting to help ease the suffering of animals

I sent the above paraphrased to HSUS.

Thanks for discussing this. Also, I love with Sailesh Rao said about the moderates. Fits HSUS to a T and is delaying an end to animal pain and suffering. Shame on HSUS! They sold out.

These so-called “powerful allies” are only allies as long as HSUS is supporting their efforts to make money off the murder of sentient beings. I will say this: HSUS certainly has their marketing techniques down to a science. They get large, ongoing donations from many people who never intend to reduce or eliminate their consumption of animal flesh. It just makes those donors feel good that they’ve purchased a pardon for their sins.

HSUS seems to be missing the point that industrial agriculture has now bought out many small pastured organic and nonorganic farm cooperatives and runs them under dual ownership (99% industrial, 1% pastured) — intensive ag has been capable of usurping any market that it looks like they can make a good buck in. Legitimate small independent small farms represent a tiny fraction of the market that has no real impact on the overall way the majority of the animals on this planet live.

While industrial ag is growing rapidly on a global scale, buying into the smaller markets along the way, the fact is that a consumer who believes he is buying meat from a small farm at a grocery counter at Whole Foods is unlikely to be buying anything legitimately labeled or “humanely treated” at all. HSUS has made a bad call — and a very, very naïve one.

The timeline on the left hand side of the page, which unfortunately hasn’t been updated since 2011, shows the slippery slope that HSUS and other groups have been sliding down for several years now.

The right hand side of the page brings up the topic of Joe Maxwell, who wears two hats — one as the HSUS Vice President of Outreach and Engagement, the other as a pig farmer who speaks of “moving 900 to 1100 fat hogs each week,” for which he is paid $1.04 a pound, and tells how he sees his job as expanding the market for “humane” meat.” So, Maxwell receives one paycheck from HSUS donations sent in by naive donors thinking that their money is going toward “protecting” animals, and a second paycheck from sending animals to slaughter. How much more hypocritical could that be?

Mary F. is absolutely correct. HSUS does nothing out of nativity. Everything they do is very calculated. The ones who are naive are the well-intentioned, unaware individuals who continue to support HSUS.

The statement from HSUS that they are promoting “humane and environmentally sustainable agriculture” contains a contradiction in terms. As the documentary, Cowspiracy, highlighted, humane meat uses more environmental resources than its factory-farmed counterpart. For example, the Markegaard farm, which produces the highest quality “humane” meat, uses nearly 4 times as much land as the average meat produced in the US. When we use 4 times as much land, we are displacing 4 times as many indigenous people off their lands and we are killing off 4 times as many wild animals on the land.

Elaine Brown
Today at 1:46pm
I would be interested in what you have to say about the article located at james-mcwilliams.com entitled ‘”Hoofin It” with HSUS’. I think people at this website as well as those commenting on the article should hear from you.

Good analogy. However, in a humane setting where animals are never killed on the “premises” do they know that eventually they will be killed? In a society where women are treated kindly until it is time to “chop off their heads”, do the women knowing that live happy lives? I think not. Perhaps they live lives which are less painful and emotionally stressful, but not likely happy.

A fantastic open letter penned by pattrice jones of VINE sanctuary has just been forwarded to me. The HSUS sponsorship of the obscene “Hoofin’ It” event seems to be *the* final straw for a great number of animal advocates who are no longer willing to maintain their silence over the never endng betrayal to the animals exercised by the farmed animal division at HSUS. Excerpt from “An Open Letter to HSUS Staff Members”:

“If you share my chagrin with the direction that the farmed animal division HSUS has been going, know this: You’re not alone. Yes, it’s true that it seems like everybody in the relevant HSUS departments has signed on to the program of promoting animal agriculture out of one side of the mouth while promoting veganism with the other, all the while smiling and using Dale Carnegie tricks to make people like you. But there are many people—including many more colleagues than you realize—who either suspect or know that something has gone very wrong.
Dare to voice your own doubts, because in doing so you will be giving others permission to do so.”

From Colorado- based Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary in response to “Hoofin’ It”:

Join Us In a Four Day Vigil for the Victims of “Humane” Farming

As participants will be “Hoofin it” (an HSUS sponsored event) around Denver for four consecutive days, savoring the burned remains of a different animal each day — a bison, a pig, a lamb, a calf — we will stand in solidarity, in sympathy, in outrage, and in sorrow with the animals whose lives, hearts, minds, memories, languages, and unique identities will have been obliterated into the ugliness of meat.

Join us in restoring the true meaning, practice, and moral significance of word ‘Respect’. Live vegan and educate others about the vegan imperative.

Wow – unbelievable. Please pardon my redneck vernacular, but what the shittin’ hell is going on here? I was not aware that HSUS were sellouts to the “flesh fetish mania” that seems to be a growing trend, and I’m saddened to hear that they would sponsor such a bullshit event, aka “showcase.”

McWilliams is brave for uttering words of contempt for the HSUS, and my 400LB vegan ass stands firmly alongside him and others, who speak against this obnoxious sponsorship.

I’m hoping that the trend of “ethical butchers, humane animal farmers, compassionate carnivores, and the like,” rapidly starts declining. Animals deserve to just be left alone, period – let’s “showcase” beans and maize instead. Oh, squash and yams too… now THAT’S what my hell-billy belly calls a good time!

As always, respect to you Jimmy for delivering powerful articles that challenge the popular thought on “how to truly eat responsively.”

LOL this is not about animals it is about the one thing that the HSUS worships above all MONEY. They do not care about you as a vegan or me as a carnivore.. they care about only ONE thing MONEY and the sooner everyone realizes it the better off we will all be.. By the way speaking of slaughter. Denver kills pit bulls and their “look alikes” by the thousands every year.. don’t see the HSUS stepping up the plate on that one do you why because there is no MONEY in saving pit bulls unless it is lying about taking care of Vicks dogs and then supporting Vick HSUS will follow one thing and yes that thing is green but it called MONEY

HSUS has been about money and power for decades. Since Pacelle became CEO ten years ago, the money-power-PUBLICITY obsession has spun so out of control it can be classified as individual/organizational psychopathology.

Wayne thinks that more and more money leads to endless power. Throughout his entire career, he has sought to weaken competing organizations and individuals so HSUS could monopolize and control the entire animal welfare movement. And the media.

This has led to blunder after blunder: Appointing a major donor, disgraced trade-school profiteer and sex offender Arthur Benjamin to the HSUS National Council, partnering with Michael Vick, extending fundraising contracts with the likes of Quadriga Art and other criminally investigated direct mails, filing false tax returns and lawsuits against anyone who exposes where Humane Society donations really go.

I always knew that HSUS didn’t care about dogs and cats except as fundraising props. I once believed that Wayne Pacelle cared about farm animals. Now I realize that farm animals are also (political) props – his vehicle of choice in a sick drive for political power.

Pacelle has no business running a tax exempt charity. The best thing that could happen for animals and animal lovers would be for HSUS and Pacelle to go away ASAP.

I received an email today asking me to sign a petition to help return the Manatee to the endangered species list. It was sent to me by HSUS. I signed it. What do you think I should have done? Shined it on?

There is a key word in the statement by HSUS…it is an ugly word, a “necessary evil” if you will…it is POLITICS.

For those of you who forget what politics is all about, it’s about interest groups, not individuals. It is about money, power, and laws that can be made, broken, and changed.

Collectively, even as an interest group, even as compassionate individuals, we are grossly outnumbered and will never have a “vegan” world, although with individual outreach, there will be more and more alternatives (even more than now!) to animal products in the future – that will be consumed by omnivores in quantities that they choose, but we can help them choose more wisely and more abundantly animal-free options.

I’m not a fan of government in general, but I understand the need for discussion in this BS arena of managing society. I applaud the politicos who champion issues that might not ever come up in discussion, and I understand that when you are outnumbered and your ultimate goal is compromise, in politics you HAVE to work with what exists to continue to strengthen your case, which you have to sell out. EVERY well-intentioned dolt that enters politics sells out their core beliefs, but it’s not beliefs that make the better person, it’s their behavior. Please stop dreaming of the vegan-politico scene that will never exist and reach out to your friends, family, neighbors, strangers through leafleting and outreach – that is the most effective!

HSUS is still going to thrive, even without the vegan/veg population behind them since those farmers they work with outnumber you and I. Those farmers have more money than you and I. Those farmers are taken more seriously than you and I considering WHO is involved in the Legislature and who is involved in the political machine.

You can scream at HSUS all you want, but you are still in the minority of donations to the organization, thus as in the whole scheme of politics, we really have no voice.

So stop bashing HSUS, let them work the gears of government the way the system is designed to be worked, and get your butts off the computer chair and start leafleting and working on behalf of the animals, regardless of what HSUS is doing. The individual is where REAL change is going to come from. Laws are garbage, Politics is garbage. Individual, human interaction is what is going to lead to lasting change.

So if you are fed up with HSUS, simply donate to another animal welfare or animal rights group, but c’mon people…continue your work for the animals and stop bickering with organizations and one another.

How about we kill you humanely before selling your body for cash? Oh, no wait… That is your karma in your next life, in this life you are the animal eater… Next life you will be the one taken from your family and slain, humanely of course, to be sold and eaten. Sound good?

Probably everyone reading this knows the feeling of going to the computer each day, clicking on email, and experiencing that knot of dread as the messages unfold with their sad and terrible stories about animals, the horrible and endlessly ingenious ways and reasons that our species has for making animals suffer and die, which includes stripping them of their dignity.

If it’s bad enough knowing what the institutions and entities that we expect to hurt animals are doing to them, there is added despair involved in knowing what is being done to animals by organizations calling themselves “humane,” “anticruelty” and the like. It is monstrous seeing our language of care and respect degraded into completely opposite meanings. A perfect example is this:
Get to Hoofin it: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

“We support farmers and ranchers who give proper care to their animals, and act in accordance with the basic ethic of compassion to sentient creatures.”
– The Humane Society of the United States

Most people know enough by now about the realities of animal farming, regardless of scale or label, to envision at least some of the details of what farmers and ranchers actually do to animals, versus verbalizations about “proper care” and “basic ethic of compassion.”

What these abstractions express and perpetuate in this context is alienation from actual animals. What they demonstrate is lack of respect for animals, indeed mockery of the very idea of “respecting” them. No one who truly respects animals, respects their dignity, feels with and for them, and wishes them joy in life supports “farming” them, because animal farming is about degrading animals meanly to the level of their genitals and their genes, mutilating their body parts, destroying their family life, controlling every aspect of their lives including culling (killing) them as one pleases when they are deemed not “productive” enough to keep feeding, and ultimately murdering them.

How can anyone claiming to respect animals promote a view of them as “dinner”?

Will a call to “Respect Your Dinner” advance your empathy and respect for animals as they lie slaughtered on your plate in barbecue sauce? Maybe the code word here is “basic.” Basic ethic of compassion = lowest possible level. In any case, compassion has nothing to do with the business and consumption of animal products. Its purpose is to gain customers and subvert consciences, to the extent that a conscience exists toward animals made into meals and blessed over in this condition even by their, uh, advocates. Like “humane,” the word compassion in this context is a mockery of both the animals and the meaning of words, including the word advocacy. It is the final gut punch to those we’re supposed to be advocating for.

technology is wonderful. so much is conveyed this way. I believe we need to take the knowledge/wisdom amassed online into our communities. identify sources of pain inflicted on animals. meet with our friends and neighbors. determine the humans involved in the local pain. peacefully interact with them at every opportunity. unrelenting, tenacious, enthusiastic, present alternatives to the cause in place to change the effect. if it’s done with love and respect and an innate knowing the condition is removed, incredible results will happen. if people have time to do their nails, go out to dinner, go to the movies, go out drinking, etc. … they have time to meet for an hour with a succinct agenda and plan of action.

It is widely known that the Humane Society is an animal welfare CORPORATION that absorbs a huge percentage of charity dollars from folks who think they are doing the right thing. The good thing is that this latest endorsement is so totally egregious that perhaps fewer people will donate to the HSUS, and instead will give their hard earned dollars to organizations who truly fight for the rights of sentient beings.

My partner and I have always wanted an animal welfare organisation like the Humane Society to benefit from our estate when we die, but we have never discovered such an organisation that we have fully trusted, and for obvious reasons we now feel more at a loss than ever before. We are in S. Africa and the nightmarish cruelty inflicted on domestic, farm and wild animals has increased apace with the general violence and lawlessness and corruption marking majority rule in S. Africa. This is not a politically incorrect plug; I am merely making the point that in the U.S. there should be enough honestly compassionate people to fight the wrongs of your Humane Society from within its ranks, and if needs be to broadcast far and wide what its wrongs are, as this forum is doing.
What elicited my comments here is the realisation that the whole world seems ruled by bloated, venal leeches preying on their humane benefactors for financial support but failing dismally to justify that support. I would never give a cent to the society under discussion in light of what I now know. But how do we find honest, reliable and worthy societies to entrust with our money when we are no longer around to scrutinise their deeds? This has been an eye-opener for me, but I now feel more uncertain than ever about how one might ensure that one’s legacy cannot be abused. Organisations and societies such as this so-called Humane Society are not only harming the animals but the whole cause that we espouse. As a number of commentators have said, it’s all about greed and power. I feel sickened by this.

Please visit United Poultry Concerns at http://www.upc-online.org. We have actively promoted the compassionate and respectful treatment of chickens and other domestic fowl and a compassionate vegan life since 1990. Our work includes a sanctuary for rescued chickens in Virginia. I promise you that we do not misuse the tax-deductible donations that support our advocacy for the largest number of abused land animals on earth: chickens. Justifiably, we are highly regarded for our dedication and accomplishments on behalf of these birds, all animals, and a better world. Thanks! Karen Davis, PhD, President, United Poultry Concerns http://www.upc-online.org

Hi Steven,
I have found that the smaller, grassroots groups are much more likely to achieve success based upon their reason for existing. One such group which does incredible work for animals is SAEN .. Stop Animal Exploitation Now. http://www.all-creatures.org/saen/about.html. I’ve met the founders, Michael and Karen Budkie. They have been and are devoted to ending animal experimentation. They are extremely effective, operating on a shoestring budget.

I was the volunteer coordinator of the 20-year anniversary of Earth Day in Staten Island, NY, 1990. I volunteered the services of my husband, and we became very involved in issues surrounding the Fresh Kills landfill, once the largest landfill, as well as human-made structure, in the world. That landfill was shut down as a direct result of the lawsuits filed and political whirlwind generated in Staten Island. This small group also was responsible for blocking construction of an ashfill in Staten Island which would have been a green light to construct 8 incinerators throughout New York City. They were never built.

It’s these small groups, citizens actions, which in my experience and belief are the most effective and in need of financial support. If you want to effect change, it’s the small, grassroots, community groups which may be relied upon.

Thanks, Patricia, for this feedback. It does make sense.
And so do your comments elsewhere about the need for each of us to be an advocate for the cause among friends and neighbours. I will visit the website you mention.
Thanks too for the work you have done.
With good wishes,
Steven

Thanks Steven! Hey, we’re here on the planet to love (respect) and serve. The rest is details. My great respect goes out to the people who make it their business to know the gory details of what goes on on this earth and devote their lives to eliminating pain. Venue matters not if our hearts are not aligned to truth. Wherever we go, we are there with that inner voice constantly urging us to follow. Failing that, we will never know true peace regardless of any material circumstances.

This whole thing with HSUS has prompted much research and discussion in our home, and the preceding comment expressing a wish that we not say anything that might cause people to stop supporting HSUS compels me to speak up again here.

I don’t have the time now to link and substantiate everything I am about to write – maybe someone else will add that, or those with more interest can search this out for themselves. But consider the following:

1) HSUS got a lot of publicity for helping to “reform” Michael Vick — even commended him as a great caretaker for his new dog– all helping to remake his image and get them more publicity. Later they insisted that “NO money changed hands related to their work with Vick — But apparently about that same time, the team that hired vick made an ENORMOUS donation to HSUS.

2) The International Humane Society (who just happens to have the same phone number and mailing address as HSUS is partners with this entity:http://www.livestockdialogue.org/
whose stated mission is to increase the use of animals worldwide to feed the world’s growing population

3) HSUS member’s contributions went to paying off Ringling Brothers Circus, for an HSUS mistake (their
insurance did NOT pay this settlement)

4) Mr. Pacelle’s salary is excessive (close to half a mil is what I heard) and strongly suggests that growing their donor base is THE fundamental driving force in HSUS behavior – NOT altruistic concerns.

5) Finally and most important — We have more laws about “how to treat animals” on the books now then ever before and we have more animals suffering and dying then ever before. There is ample evidence that laws are meaningless, poorly enforced and give people the incorrect impression that terrible stuff is the exception not the norm, and makes it easier for them to continue to ignore their own choices. it is likely that eating animals WILL decline in the very near future no matter what we do — simply because of resource depletion and population growth. But that alone will not get us any closer to a vegan world. The only way we will ever move the masses towards a truly non-violent diet is through changing hearts and minds via truthful information and compelling and inspiring pleas for our species to aspire to humanities highest possibilities and EVOLVE! To this end, what HSUS is doing is counterproductive.

United Poultry Concerns, American Vegan Society, North American Vegetarian Society, Tribe of Heart, Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary and VINE animal Sanctuary are all groups that “UP TO THIS POINT IN TIME” are doing honest abolition work. Give your money to them. Almost every other large group is doing things that are setting us back, and/or more about bringing in funds and keeping everyone in good paying jobs — rather then advancing the ethical and moral perspective regarding our relationship with non-human animals.

Elaine Brown?The Humane Society of the United States – Farmer Outreach
August 17 at 1:46pm ·
I would be interested in what you have to say about the article located at james-mcwilliams.com entitled “Hoofin It” with HSUS. I think people at this website as well as those commenting on the article should hear from you.
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Elaine Brown

Hi Jessica, thanks for your feedback. This event touted the fact that Denver restaurants are offering more humanely and sustainably raised animals products and abstaining from offering factory-farmed meats. This event was an effort to connect consumers with farmers and restaurants that offer higher welfare products, which is part of our Three Rs campaign: “reducing” or “replacing” consumption of animal products, and “refining” our diets by choosing products from sources that adhere to higher animal welfare standards.
Like · 4 hrs
Elaine Brown

The Humane Society of the United States – Farmer Outreach

Hi Elaine, thanks for reaching out. Our full statement regarding our sponsorship of Hoofin’ It is included in the article. If you have any additional questions we’d be glad to answer them. Thank you!
Like · Reply · August 17 at 2:29pm

“This event touted the fact that Denver restaurants are offering more humanely and sustainably raised animals products…” Less inhumanely raised, at best.

The animal killers and dead flesh peddlers can do their own marketing, and people who want to consume it can find it on their own. It’s totally inappropriate for a supposed-to-be animal protection organization to do it for them.

HSUS’s main strategy now seems to be to end factory farming while the Center for Consumer Freedom trains a bullseye firmly on HSUS’s back. If HSUS now regards factory farming as the villain and not speciesism (with nonvegans among their staff) where do they believe that their work will lead them? All of the undercover investigations, are they just to raise money from donors as Gary Francione is apt to say? The HSUS’s budget in 2006 was $150 million. What is it this year? It so unseemly that such a large animal protection organization is promoting the idea that eating animals and their secretions is humane when it contradicts what they said just a few years ago.

As further indication that HSUS’ sponsorship of the “Hoofin’ It” event was not just some regrettable anomaly to what they regularly promote, here is an example from last week in which HSUS advertises “Sustainable, Humane Local Cheeses”.

Their statement “Two Omaha Hy-Vee stores have started offering cheeses from three local dairies that use organic and humane practices and raise cows on green pastures” has the exact same disingenuous ring to it as the California Milk Processor Board’s ‘Got Milk’ ads.

And to suggest that HSUS-approved cheese is ‘good’ for animals is nothing less than perverse. “As a result, the farms are able to expand beyond farmers markets and better compete against industrialized agribusinesses which are bad for animals and family farmers.”

This is absurd. I donate to the Humane Society all the time, but now i’m seriously reconsidering. I “get” the HS concept here of “inclusive politics” to effect change….but sponsoring a MEAT EATING event? This is ridiculous.

And the person sitting proudly with the animal he just killed is favoured morally and financially by the “humane society”? The more we learn and see, the more saddened and sickened we are. A society like this has to be exposed. It’s become a bloated parasite on the pockets of people who don’t know what they’re supporting. It’s not even on the fence. It’s on the other side with the slaughterers. It’s disgusting.

There is no difference in raising a human baby for consumption. It’s fattened, slaughtered and consumed. Either we oppose it or we promote it. There is no gray area. Wayne Pacelle and HSUS are just too greedy to be effective on any level. They have deceived the caring public and betrayed it’s trust. A good reputation, once lost, is almost impossible to restore. A side of cow is a side of human baby … a meal created out of death.